Chesco man facing sentencing on child sex tourism takes own life

John Charles Ware, the grandson of a former U.S. congressman facing federal charges involving allegations of sex tourism, died in custody Monday, reportedly taking his own life.

A spokesman for the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, where Ware was being held, confirmed that he had died, but was unable to comment on the cause or manner of death. An autopsy would be performed later by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office as part of an ongoing investigation into the incident, said spokesman Darren Howard Monday.

Ware's attorney, Chris Hoey of Paoli, said that his client had been taken to Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia sometime Monday morning, where he was pronounced dead. He said the cause of death was suicide, but had no other details.

Ware had been in custody since his arrest on the federal charges in February 2011. He had been scheduled to plead guilty to those charges in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia Monday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin. A spokesman for McLaughlin said that the proceedings had been cancelled.

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Hoey said he had spoken with Ware last week in anticipation of the change of plea hearing Monday and that his client, "seemed fine."

"He was very optimistic," Hoey said. "We were hoping to resolve his case in a favorable manner. He was going to accept responsibility, and we had hoped to get him a sentence that fit the circumstances of his behavior, one that would allow him to live outside the prison system for a significant period of his life.

"Unfortunately, this development has changed all that," Hoey said.

Howard said that Ware had been found unresponsive in his cell at the detention facility on Arch Street about 8 p.m. Sunday. Corrections officers attempted CPR, and Ware was transported to Thomas Jefferson Hospital by ambulance. There, emergency room personnel were able to establish a heart beat from Ware, but he died at about 3:30 a.m., Howard said.

No detail was given on Ware's condition when found in his cell other than that he was unconscious, Howard said. Individual cells at the facility are not equipped with security cameras.

Authorities with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, who were prosecuting the federal charges against Ware, referred questions about the matter to the detention officials. Chester County Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth B. Pitts, who was prosecuting Ware on state charges he molested children at his home outside Oxford, declined comment.

Ware, 47, of East Nottingham was accused of scheduling trips to Iceland and Italy for himself and two children, each in celebration of their 13th birthdays, and sexually assaulting them while overseas, the indictment against him alleged. The trips allegedly took place in July 2005 and November 2007. In addition, the indictment states he tried to take two other boys on a trip to the Bahamas for their birthdays in July, one month before his arrest on state charges of sexual assault, in order to molest them there. The trip did not take place.

A release at the time of his arrest from U.S. Attorney Zane David Memenger, stated that Ware, whose father was an Oxford Borough Council member and whose family is prominently known in southern Chester County, "exhibited a pattern of grooming minors in order to ultimately have sexual contact with each of them, including encouraging the boys to swim naked in his pool, being naked in front of the boys, giving the boys massages, and attempting to normalize sexual activity between him and his victims."

The indictment said that in the summer of 2010, Ware pressed the mother of one of the minors to allow him to take the boy and another youth to "the more secluded areas of the Bahamas," after the boy asked Ware to take him on a trip there.

"You can trust me," Ware allegedly told the other boy's parents, when telling them of the plans for the trip. He is alleged to have then molested the two boys at his home in East Nottingham before leaving on the trip.

Ware was charged with two counts of transporting a minor in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity involving two different minors; one count of transporting one of those minors in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity; two counts of attempting to transport a minor in foreign commerce with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity involving two additional minors; production of child pornography and the receipt and possession of child pornography.

Hoey said Ware was going to enter an open plea of guilty to specific charges before McLaughlin on Monday, and then await sentencing. No agreement had been reached with the prosecution on the possible length of the sentence, he indicated.

When he was charged, the U.S. Attorney's Office said he Ware faced a possible maximum sentence of life in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 15 years; a $1.75 million fine, a mandatory five years to lifetime supervised release, and forfeiture of his home in East Nottingham.

At the time of his federal arrest, he had been free on $1.3 million bail on the county charges. Although their names are not mentioned in the federal indictment, it appears that at least three of the victims named in the case are those who Ware is also accused of sexually abusing in the local case.

According to the indictment, Ware invited the first of his alleged victims to a trip to Iceland in July 2005. On the trip oversees, the indictment alleges, he sexually abused the boy. In November of 2007, Ware is alleged to have taken a second boy, also turning 13, to Italy for his birthday, and there, again, sexually abused him.

According to state police investigators from the Avondale barracks, Ware sexually abused the first teenage boy between the summer of 2005 and May 2008, while Ware lived in West Nottingham. The molestation continued and increased over the years, and included Ware taking dozens of pornographic photos of the boy, whose name was withheld by police, which he loaded on a CD-ROM.

He is accused in the state case of molesting the two 13-year-olds he invited to the Bahamas at his home in East Nottingham around the same time as the planned trip.

In the local case, Ware faces, among other charges, 10 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a minor, a charge that carries with it the possibility of a 10-year-minimum mandatory sentence if he is found guilty.

Ware was a prominent member of the community before his arrest in August 2010. He worked at Oxford Area Senior High School, yearbook records and sources confirm, where he was an art teacher, teaching one class a day, from 2001 to 2003. School officials say he has had no presence in the school since. Ware was also a former member of the Oxford Educational Foundation, which, according to its Web site, raises funds for the Oxford Area School District.

His grandfather, the late John H. Ware III, was a state senator for 10 years before winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970. He represented the 9th Congressional District for two terms before he retired in 1975. He passed away in 1997. The portion of U.S. Route 1 that runs from Kennett Square to Oxford is known as the John H. Ware III Memorial Highway.

His father, John H. Ware IV, retired from public service in 2008 after having served on Oxford Borough Council for 16 years.